Uptown Boys
by Iellix
Summary: --DEAD STORY-- AU, KH and FFX crossover. It's time we turned the tables. The Uptown Boys fall for the Downtown Girls, and discover that they can't simply get by in life by being rich, especially if they really want what's worth having. SY, TY, RZ.
1. Uptown Boys

Well, I know I said I would get started on this fic over the summer, but things got in the way, and I had the itch today to write something new, so I decided I would start on this, and while I'm writing I will agonize over where, exactly, to post it. Well, enjoy! All those of you who like Billy Joel's music will like this, I'm sure.

Disclaimer: All characters used in this story are property of Square. All songs are the songs of the Great Billy Joel. I'm only writing this once, so read it carefully this time!

Summary: The Uptown Girl always has a soft spot for the Downtown Boy—until now. Three guys—Tidus, Squall, and Riku—have everything they ever wanted. They are rich and handsome and have all the right connections. They think that they can get _any_ girl that they want. Until, that is, they meet three young ladies from the wrong side of the tracks—Yuna, Yuffie, and Zephyr. These young ladies are not as taken by pomp and circumstance as the uptown girls are, which makes the guys begin to think—maybe there is more to life than just being an Uptown Boy…

In this story, the ages are as follows: Tidus 19; Riku 17; Squall 21; Yuna 19; Zephyr 17; Yuffie 17.

…0…0…0…0…0…

A red convertible drove through the streets of the small but crowded area, weaving in and out of parked cars or cars going too slow. The three guys in the car were laughing and waving at random pedestrians. They were far from home, these three, having come to the other side of the area where the so-called "Wrong Side of the Tracks" was located. Everything here was working-class, as opposed to the high-society lifestyle they enjoyed.

Driving the car was the eldest of the three, was a young man named Squall Leonhart with long brown hair and startlingly blue eyes. Squall was a fairly quiet and reserved young man, seeming humorless at times. He didn't talk or laugh or smile very much. He was the son of a retired Colonel named Laguna Loire. His father's pension as well as his family-owned business kept them well into upper-class. His mother had died some years ago, along with his—

_"Eyes on the road, eyes on the road!"_ The blonde young man, Tidus, yelled, rattling Squall by the shoulders to snap him awake and letting him steer them away from a pedestrian walking, in all places, a crosswalk.

Tidus was a very jovial, talkative, carefree young man who seemed to stay longer at Adolescence than most people did. But somewhere under that silly exterior, there had to be some degree of sincerity. He had flaxen-blonde hair and amazingly blue eyes, which made many a woman fall over her own feet for him. _His_ father was a very famous Blitzball player, Jecht Reina. Tidus had lived rich since he was born and had never really truly had to do anything for himself. But none could deny that he was truly a good friend once one could look past his spoiled exterior.

The third passenger was Riku Marid, a silver-haired, blue-eyed teenaged boy whose family had bred champion racehorses for generations and generations, siring some of the best champions in the world. He was a quiet young man but not reserved so much as Squall was. He was also _extremely_ competitive. And although much of the time his heart was in the right place, his head was never in the game as much. Sometimes he came off as aloof and other times he came off as very insecure.

"So are we gonna find a place to stop here or what?" Riku asked, speaking loudly against the rush of wind.

"Just gotta find a place with chicks going in!" Tidus said, using one hand to keep his hair from blowing into his eyes. His mentor, Auron MacLeod, constantly told him to cut it because it was getting so long.

"There looks like a good place," Squall said, indicating a small club with blinking, Broadway-style lights reading the name—_The Birdcage._ Without warning, he pulled in to park in front of it, sending his two friends flying into the left rear door.

"Okay, okay, Riku, get up off of me before people think we're fags," Tidus shoved the smaller boy off of him and jumped over the car door rather than opening it.

"If I wanted people to think we were queer, I'd kiss you," the silver-haired youth growled, getting out of the opposite side of the car. Squall followed, staring at the door to the club.

"Looks like a cozy little place," he said. "Not too many people in there."

"What?" Tidus asked, scrambling in front of him to get a look. "There's at least girls right?"

"Yes, Tidus, I see girls. A lot of them, actually."

"I'm game, lets go!" He said, dragging them both inside.

The Birdcage consisted of almost entirely girls. There was a troupe on the stage singing a Gloria Esteban number in short salsa-skirts. A particularly tall woman with blonde hair, wearing a little red dress and heels walked up to Tidus, saying in a particularly low voice, "You wanna dance, hottie?"

Tidus was busy ogling at her chest, which was uncharacteristically covered. Finally he managed to say, "What's your name, honey?"

"Lola."

Squall and Riku stared with a mixture of shock and horror in realization—_Lola was a drag queen._

"Uh, Tidus?"

"Not _now,_ man!" He hissed, stepping out with the transvestite and starting to dance. The only thing his friends could do was stare with their eyes the size of tea saucers. About two minutes into the song, Lola began grinding awfully close and Tidus, taken a bit by surprise, started to back up in the direction of the bar.

"Who's gonna go about saving the poor sod?" They heard a female voice say through the music and the noise.

Squall and Riku looked in that direction and noticed a very short girl wandering out into the crowd in Tidus' direction. She had long black hair and wore a red plaid skirt.

"Ey, Lola, get lost," she hissed in a thick British accent. "Go find someone who's interested!" She gently took Tidus by the arm and dragged him away, and Lola wandered off, miffed. Once they were safely on the sidelines, the girl turned around and looked up at Tidus, saying, "You should be careful around here—just because the Birdcage is swarming with ladies it doesn't mean they're all girls."

"Wha—?" Tidus asked, confused still. Another girl walked up behind the first one, this one with short brown hair and mismatched blue and green eyes.

"Lola's a drag queen—a gay one," she explained. "Lola goes for fresh faces because everyone else here already knows everything about him. Her… it?" She seemed briefly confused about the choice of pronoun for a drag queen but dropped it.

Tidus went pale, staring in the direction that Lola had gone and then staring back at the two girls in front of him. He briefly lost his balance due to a lack of lockage in his knees.

"What's going on?" Riku asked. He and Squall had come over when they weren't entirely sure whether Tidus was saved by a girl or just another drag queen, and they were relieved to see that she was, indeed, a girl. As they walked over, a third girl appeared next to the other two, come to see what was going on.

"Guys, did you even know what _sort_ of a club you were wandering into?" The first black-haired girl asked. At their silence, she sighed. "The Birdcage is a _drag club,"_ she said.

"It's a _what?"_ Squall yelled.

"Oh, don't be such prudes," the third girl said. This one had very short black hair held back with a silver headband. "C'mon, this way. Sit down and we'll protect you from the big bad drag queens," she said, laughing. The short girl glared in her direction but said nothing, merely followed and took her seat on top of the bar.

Yuffie Kisaragi, Yuna Bamarre, and Zephyr Maradei—they were the Three Musketeers. Best friends since they were relatively young. Yuffie and Yuna had known one another for twelve years, and Zephyr had joined the troupe later on, once she moved from her home in Yorkshire, England when she was seven. They were pretty much self-sufficient, getting by on their own, _just_ getting by, and not really wanting anything that they couldn't have.

Yuffie was slight and petite, with short black hair and eyes like dark gems. She lived alone, in the apartment downstairs from Yuna above the nightclub. They both worked cleanup duty most nights when they didn't have school during the day, which paid for their room and board, as well as enough money to get by. Yuffie also walked enough dogs to pull a small locomotive, for the extra money she needed. She couldn't really remember much about her "family," since her mother had died years ago, and her father had given her to the state when she was thirteen. Since then, she had managed to take charge of her own assets even though she hadn't come of age yet.

Yuna, with her unusually bicolored eyes and soft brown hair, was what most young men would consider attractive, but she had never had any luck with the members of the opposite sex. She, too worked at the Birdcage, but she worked nearly full-time, performing costume detail for the "Cage-Girls," as the drag actors called themselves. Whenever she wasn't at the Birdcage, she was at an art studio, trying to hone her skills as a costume designer, her choice of study for school. She lived with her cousin, Rikku, who was most of the time out with her boyfriend, a better-off young man named Gippal. Yuna was orphaned at a young age, left to live with her uncle until she, too gained control of her assets.

Zephyr considered herself the Oddball of the three of them. With her long black hair and calm gray eyes, she looked much different from her friends. She was not orphaned and neither of her parents were, to her knowledge, deceased, but they had in all abandoned she and her older brother over ten years ago. Her brother was luckily nineteen at the time, and they had packed up what little they owned and moved to America. She still lived with him. Also unlike her friends, Zephyr did not work or have very much at all to do with the Birdcage. She and her brother lived above it, as well, but both of them worked at a well-to-do family's stable; she as a stable-girl, and he as an informally-trained equine vet tech.

"I guess you ladies live around here, huh?" Tidus asked, effectively _not _breaking the ice. "I mean you seem like you're regulars here."

"We live upstairs," Yuna explained, keeping her eyes trained on him but her face completely expressionless. "Yuffie and me work here most of the time, it pays the bills."

"So who's who?" Riku asked, looking from girl to girl to girl.

"Only if you tell us who's who with you," Zephyr said. "We don't know who _you_ are, either."

"I'm Tidus," the blonde piped up, trying again to break the ice. "Them two are Riku and Squall. So, now what are your names?"

"Yuffie."

"Yuna."

"Zephyr."

"You aren't scrambling your names so we get confused and look stupid are you?" Riku asked.

"Ooh, I hadn't thought of that!" Yuffie said. "That's a good idea!"

"Smart guy," Zephyr said in her sarcastic, dry tone. She always talked like that, even when she wasn't trying to be sarcastic.

"You live upstairs?" Squall asked, sitting down in an empty bar chair and scooting it closer. The last time he'd heard of people living upstairs of where they worked was before his father had gotten pissed off and fired the last housekeepers.

"Yea, they let us live there free because it's a drag club," Yuffie said. "They have trouble finding help with guys because they keep getting hit on by all the Cage-Girls, and girls don't want to help because they get really jealous of the drag queens' clothing."

"Plus… it's a _drag club,"_ Yuna said. She shifted her position and sat in her chair like a lady, rather than backwards with her legs around the back. Tidus was staring at her and it made her uncomfortable.

Riku had attempted to engage Zephyr in conversation, since she was the only one not talking to someone else and he was getting bored. "You live upstairs, too, right?"

"Yes."

"Do you work here?"

"No, I just live here. My brother and I work at a stable," she said.

Riku was about to mention that his family bred horses, but someone came up behind them at the bar.

"Girls not working tonight?" A man asked. All three guys were slightly shocked to note that it came from a petite woman with over-the-top makeup.

Yuffie turned around. "Not tonight, Cha-Cha," she said. "Night off, remember? I mean we do need to have a _little_ relaxation."

"Uh-huh," he said. Then he spied the guys and raised his eyebrows. "Hot date?"

"No, Zephyr saved them from Lola," she explained. Cha-Cha shivered.

"Lola… yech. She has hair on her butt."

This comment they ignored and went on talking with each other. They lost track of time, soon, and before they knew it, it was late. A handful of unsuspecting guys had already wandered out with drag queens. They were tickled to notice that one particularly cocky-looking guy walked out with Lola.

With that, they parted company. They would have to use different doors to get home, the boys leaving out the front door and the girls leaving out the side doors to get upstairs. Before they left, Tidus turned around to Yuna.

"Can I get your number?"

Yuna paused for a while before she said anything. "If you want to talk, you know where to find me," she said.

"I'm supposed to hang around a drag club until you show up?" He asked.

"If you wanted to talk to me that badly, then waiting at my place of work wouldn't be too terribly painful, would it?"

"Well all I was saying was I wanted your number, I mean, that can't be too hard, can it?"

"Give it up, Tidus," Riku murmured. "You won't win."

He rolled his eyes and followed his friends out and into the car. They headed back home in silence for a while until the lack of chaos became too much for Tidus to bear and he started talking again.

"So whatcha think of them?" He asked.

Squall, as usual, just shrugged and pretended not to have anything to say. Riku shrugged as well, but he answered, "They were nice, I guess. They probably felt bad for you because you were dancing with a drag-rapist."

"You're not going to let me forget it, are you?" He growled. His normal silly grin then took its' place on his face. "Well, they were still cute."

"Any female on two legs with a pulse is cute to you," Riku said. Even Squall had to snort at this comment. "But yea, the short one was cute."

"You mean the only one not taller than you, right?" Tidus had to lash back.

"I asked for that," he said with a sigh.

"Even if you hadn't, I'd've given it to you."

"That's only because you take some kind of sophomoric pleasure in being ridiculous. And stop insulting my height!"

"Or the lack thereof."

The car screeched to a stop. Tidus hit his head on the dash and Riku slid under the front seats. They scrambled to regain their seating.

"What was that for?" Tidus asked.

"Both of you, get out of my car," Squall demanded.

"Huh?"

"I said get out of my car! You're acting like idiots!"

Grudgingly, Tidus got out, followed by Riku, who was smirking and snickering. Squall drove off, leaving them both there. Riku was still snorting.

"What're you laughing at?" Tidus demanded. "You're stuck out here too!"

Riku pointed. "My house is just over there," he said. "Yours is still another twenty-minute walk."

Tidus hung his head. "Say, whatcha think about giving me a ride back—"

"No."

"Oh, come on!"

"Nope."

"I don't wanna walk all that way in the dark, there might be drag rapists in the bushes!"

"Well when you put it that way…"

Tidus looked hopeful.

"Just run fast. You're an athlete, you can take it." With that, he disappeared up the long walkway to his front door.

Tidus turned around and looked at the mostly-dark road towards his house. "Aw shit…"

0…0…0…0…0

I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that I'm starting chapter two right away. The bad news is that I'm putting HDILT on hold again. It's getting pretty hard for me to write for that one these days but I refuse to abandon it. It just might be a while before I update again! Anyway, this was more than anything a prologue, and chapter two will be not only a songfic chapter (as I intend for most of the chapters in this story to be) but it will be centered on the girls. The guys are deliberately a bit transparent, but I will get better into their personalities later on. Anyway, I hope you all like this start and I will be getting chapter two out as soon as possible.

P.S: If anyone can guess where Lola and the name "The Birdcage" come from, I shall give them great praise… plus mention them first thing in the next chapter! I'll give you a hint: _they aren't from the same place!_


	2. It's Still Rock and Roll to Me

I told you I'd be starting on chapter two soon. I posted chapter one a few hours ago and here I am, typing away at chapter two! Not much else to say, really. The song for this chapter is, of course, Billy Joel. The song is "Still Rock and Roll to Me." A girl-centric chapter, our favorite leading men won't have much, if any, appearances in this chapter, but they will come the next one.

YES, The Birdcage is a movie about a gay couple, their son, his fiancée, their future in-laws, and a drag club. Well done to SetsunaMew, Saturnmkch12, and anyone else I missed who guessed it! "Lola" is a song by the Kinks. Antares175 guessed that one—well done! It's an older song. It's about a guy being seduced by a transvestite and not knowing it. Lola was the transvestite. Hehehe…

What I missed in my disclaimer yesterday: _Zephyr and her brother are my property! Mine, mine, mine, all mine!_ And so is Riku because I love him so much.

0…0…0…0…0

Cold rain. Cold wind. Cold air. Cold ground. Cold everything. Zephyr shivered and curled deeper into her coat as she forked the new bedding into the last of the stalls. Although she worked in an enormous stable of fifty horses, she was in charge of ten, plus her own pony. She'd taken longer than usual to do her job today of feeding and grooming and watering and checking for anything unusual, then letting them into the field and changing the bedding. She was slow in the cold weather, a bit like a reptile.

"Hey, Barn Princess," a snide voice said. She winced—she recognized it instantly as a young woman named Laverne. "Where's my mare?"

_"What's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing?_

_Can't you tell that your tie's too wide?_

_Maybe I should buy some old Tab Collars?_

_Welcome back to the age of Jive."_

"I just put Jay-Jay outside with the others," she said as calmly as possible. She didn't like most of the people who boarded their horses at the Marid stables. They were all rich and snobby, with equally rich and snobby children. The only reason she could afford to board her own pony there was because her brother worked for considerably less than other vet techs, and the Marid family let them board for free as long as they provided their own feed and tack.

_"What_ did you just call her?" Laverne demanded. Zephyr winced. She should have known better than to use a nickname for a horse around a person to whom horseblood and lineage was everything. "The name of _my_ mare is Duchess Blue Jay Lady Love."

"Of course," Zephyr gritted between clenched teeth. "Well whatever you decide to call her, she's out in the paddock with the others, I haven't opened the gate to the pasture yet. You can get her if you want." She went back to forking bedding, doing her best to ignore the young woman behind her.

"Well?"

"Well what?" She was beginning to get extremely irritated. She had work to do! She turned around and faced her, and the other girl immediately burst into laughter.

"Look at how _you're_ dressed!" She said. "If you wanna work in a place like this, the _least_ you could do is make sure your chaps match your _boots!"_ She pointed and Zephyr looked down—her chaps had, over years, faded a light brown and her boots had stayed the same dark brown as they'd always been.

"It doesn't matter to me," she said, leaning on her pitchfork and resisting all impulses she felt to hurl it through Laverne. "Now, did you come here to criticize my dress choice or would you like to go get your mare?"

"You go get her," she snorted. "You're the stable girl."

"So?"

"Well, I'm a paying boarder! That means I rank higher than you do!"

Zephyr felt the primal instinct to gnaw on this woman's jugular. To hold it, she gripped the pitchfork painfully tight as her chapped knuckles painfully stretched. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

"What's the fuss here, Laverne?" Now someone _else_ had joined the hazing crew, it seemed. The newcomer was another boarder, whom she was unfamiliar with since she was not in charge of this woman's horse.

"Barn Princess here won't get my mare!" Laverne whined in the most nasal voice Zephyr had ever heard. She rubbed one ear to try to stop it from ringing. So _that_ was the problem. She was supposed to stop everything she was doing and go get the mare, no questions asked. She sighed inwardly and stayed where she was, leaning on the pitchfork with one foot up on the prongs.

"Look," she said, the word unintentionally expressing a considerable amount of her accent. "I've got work to do. If the horses were in the pasture I could understand your not wanting to go out, but they're all still contained. And stop calling me 'Barn Princess,' as well."

Laverne snorted. "You and your little accent and your 'I'm too good to get the horses' attitude sound like you _think_ you're a princess."

So… they were poking fun of her accent and her adhesive to dignity. It was so juvenile that it wasn't even worth arguing about.

"Look, I know you aren't terribly fond of me and that's fine because quite frankly, I don't really like your very presence, either," she said, surprising herself with her own control. "Now, I know you would like to get your mare, but I've still got work to do and if you don't mind, I would like to get it done. It would be more sensible for you to go out and get your _own_ horse but if it's an absolute _must_ that you don't traipse around the paddock in those $900 Italian leather boots, then please find a stable hand who _isn't_ working." She paused and looked at the humorously bewildered expressions on the two girls' faces.

_"Where've you been hiding out lately, honey?_

_You can't dress trashy 'til you spend a lot of money._

_Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound,_

_Funny,_

_But it's still rock and roll to me."_

Laverne choked on her tongue for a second and fumed, her face becoming red under the makeup.

'Who wears makeup to a barn, anyway?' Zephyr wondered.

"You're just a stable girl!" She spat. "I'm a rich girl from a rich family! You have to be to board here!"

"So?"

She fumed even more. _"I could get you fired for this you stupid little prissy bitch!"_

"No you can't," she said calmly. Her cool demeanor seemed to be ticking Laverne off more than if she had decided to argue. _"You_ can't fire me because _you_ didn't hire me. The family did. And I'm doing everything that I'm supposed to do and surplus."

With a final screech of malice, Laverne reached out and slapped Zephyr as hard as she could across the face, forcing her to jerk sharply to the left and hit the other side of her face against the fork handle.

She stayed perfectly still for a moment until she turned back to glare at her, growling deep in her throat.

Now Laverne was laughing. "What, does she think she's half-dog or something? Listen to her, she's _growling!"_ For some reason she found this amazingly funny. She leaned forward and mockingly half-growled back.

A huge lump rose in her throat. If there was one thing she hated more than anything else, it was being mocked.

"Just let me be," she demanded. "I've got work to do." She deftly turned away and went back to scooping the bedding, which had lain neglected now for several minutes. She ignored the taunts behind her as best as she could until she felt someone kick her in the back of the knee, making her fall down and hit the front of her knee on the pitchfork.

"Are you _ignoring_ us?"

"Yes," she groaned through gritted teeth. Her knee hurt badly.

"Well, why—"

Zephyr got up, picked the fork up in both hands, and _slammed_ it into the wooden stable floor, burying the prongs an inch into the wood. "Leave… me… alone," she hissed in a venomous tone.

Two sets of eyes were fixed on the pitchfork jammed into the ground. When both girls had snapped from their frightened stupor, they skittered in the other direction, muttering nasty things and suddenly realizing that maybe they _could_ get their own horses.

As soon as they were gone, Zephyr collapsed in the bedding, unzipping one leg of her chaps and pulling the jeans leg up to get a look at her knee. It was red and beginning to turn colors. It was also stiff and a little swollen, and it hurt to put too much weight on it but as long as she was careful she would be fine until it healed.

"What happened?" A soft, familiar voice asked. She looked up into the ice blue eyes of her older brother, Archer. His real first name was Frances, but he hated that name, so he had everyone call him by his middle name. He had black hair like she did, which he kept tied back in a jaunty ponytail. He had a slightly more curved figure than most men his age and had the same shaped face that she did, which led many people to think that he was a woman.

"Knee trick," she admitted. She was alone, now, so she did not have to struggle so hard to hide her thick accent. "I landed on the stupid sodding pitchfork." She kicked it. She pulled back cautiously when he reached out to take a look at it.

"Relax, little sister," he said, putting her leg in his lap and examining the knee. "I just want to look at it, I'm not going to eat it." That comment made her giggle.

"How's it look?" She asked.

"Well…" he began, then he paused again. "It looks a lot hairier than any of the horses legs but other than that it looks fine," he rolled the jeans leg down carefully and left her to zip up the chaps. "You bashed it up pretty well though."

"Will I still be able to work?" She asked worriedly. She knew full well that they wouldn't be able to keep paying rent and everything if one of them stopped working, even for a little while. Money was tight enough as it is and she was looking into picking up a second job at The Birdcage.

"Probably, but you'll have to keep resting to ice it. I'll be making sure that you do, as well." He offered her a hand to help her up. "Come on, I'll get you some ice right now and let you relax a little bit."

"Thanks," she said softly, walking at his side.

"No problem, little sister."

0…0…0…0…0

Yuffie sat in her car, counting her change. She'd had to do a food run when she realized that half of the things in the refrigerator were at least a week past the expiration date. Then she did a quick stomach-medicine run at the drugstore across the street when she realized she had been _eating_ this spoiled food for the last four days.

"Well, there goes my paycheck," she muttered. "Food, utilities, clothing, schooling… where does it end?" With a sigh, she put her bag down on the passenger-side seat and started on her way home.

As she drove, she belted out her favorite song on the radio, glad that no one else was in the car with her. Whenever she sang with a passenger, particularly Zephyr, they would yell at her to shut up and complain about her singing voice. Yuna would just cover her ears and politely tell her that if she did not stop singing, she would break her nose.

When she was innocently stopped at a red light, she was tapping her fingers on the wheel when suddenly she felt the whole car lurch forward as if it was pushed from the back. She saw the car in her rearview mirror and the angry driver inside. Her eyes nearly popped right out of their sockets.

"What happened?" She demanded, getting her foot caught in the seatbelt as she scrambled out of her car to check the damage. The man behind her had smashed into her back bumper, nearly taking it right off.

"Looks like that'll cost you," the man said nonchalantly, merely glancing at her car as he inspected the minor scratches and small dent on his own car.

_"Excuse me?"_ She asked. "I think this'll cost _you._ You hit my car, not the other way around."

_"What's the matter with the car I'm driving?_

_Can't you tell that it's out of style?_

_Should I get a set of white-wall tires?_

_Are you gonna cruise the Miracle Mile?"_

"Look, lady, it's not my problem," he spat, getting annoyed with the fact that a mere teenager was disagreeing with him. He went to get back into his car when Yuffie grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him back.

"Yes it is!" She hissed. "Look, you just hit my car with yours and knocked off my bumper!"

"Let go of me!"

"Look, all I want is for you to pay for the bumper! It was your damned fault that you knocked it off, now you're gonna pay for it or I'll break Hell!"

The man shorted at her expression, then started laughing. Yuffie felt herself start to sweat. She hated being laughed at. She clenched her fists and snorted louder, like a bull.

"Just stop laughing at me, okay?" She snapped. "I've been having a bad day! It's not like it's more than you could afford just to pay half of what it would cost to get the bumper replaced, just stop being so selfish! It was your fault anyway, so it's fine if I ask you to pay _all_ of it, but I'm not!" She yelled. "I just want you to pay half, that's it!"

"Well how do you know what it's gonna cost?" He asked cockily, seeming very please with himself when Yuffie didn't answer for a full breath. "Don't know?"

"No, I know. I had to have this done once before and it was $400. So that means if you pay half, you'll have to pay $200."

"There's no way I'm shellin' out $200 for a dumb bitches car!"

Yuffie started to breathe shakily. She was really, _really_ trying to maintain, but there was no way she could hold out much longer if this man kept making things difficult for her. She didn't want to make a scene, but she was going to. They were already attracting spectators: a cyclist, two joggers, and a stray dog.

The man started to get back into his car when she grabbed him a second time. This time he took her wrist and twisted it around. She howled and snapped it back, glaring at him.

"I'm not payin'," he snapped.

"You… you… you…" she finally loosed a scream and kicked the guardrail, denting it. She winced and took all of her weight off of that foot, hissing through her teeth. She glared at him again, looking quite dangerous. "Don't make me mad," she said hoarsely.

The man was now shaken to his foundations and their audience was murmuring amongst itself (with exception of the dog, who was licking his private areas.) Yuffie vaguely heard things like, "He should pay, I mean it _is_ his fault," and, "Where did she learn to _do that?"_

With a heaving sigh, the man quickly scribbled a check for $100, which would not nearly begin to cover the cost of her car, but it was better than nothing. As she went to her car and he to his, she accidentally-on-purpose tripped him, and he bashed his lip on one of the side mirrors. She settled into the driver's side seat and sighed, staring at the check. She had no idea how she would pay the rest of it.

She had actually put her bumper in the back seat, since she really didn't know what else to do with it because it had been completely torn off. Her license plate had also been ripped off, so she propped it up in her back window so that she wouldn't be arrested or anything.

_"Don't you know about the new fashion, Honey?_

_All you need are looks and a whole lot of money._

_It's the next phase, new wave, dance craze,_

_Anyways,_

_It's still rock and roll to me."_

She drove home first to put all of her things away, and shortly after she pulled into a space, she noticed Yuna's car as well. She must have gotten there a few minutes before, since her windows weren't all foggy. Quickly, she gathered up all of her bags and kicked the door shut, pulling herself up the three flights of stairs to her apartment.

Yuna stuck her head out of her own window, looking down at her. "Hey, Yuffie, what's up? I can see your withering scowl from all the way up here—what happened?""

Yuffie backed out of the stairway and looked up, smiling when she saw her longtime friend. "Come on and help me put this crap away," she said. "And I'll tell you about it then okay?" When she got to her apartment, Yuna was already there, sitting on the sofa with yesterday's paper. Yuffie gave her a look.

"What?"

"Most _normal_ neighbors will just wait at the door," she said, putting her bags down in front of the fridge and starting to put things away.

"Yea, well, I pride myself on _not_ being a normal neighbor. Plus, you leave your windows perpetually unlocked."

"Well are you gonna sit there and use oxygen or are you gonna help me put this stuff away?" She snapped irritably.

"Geez, what happened to you, Yuffie?"

"Some jackass knocked my bumper off," Yuffie said, slamming things around as she put them away.

"Front or back?"

"Back."

"Ouch… what did he say?"

"Not much, but mostly to the effect of 'I'm not paying for it.' I kicked the guardrail." She sighed, a little ashamed at her own outburst. She tried not to be so childish but sometimes her temper ran away with her. It made her seem so juvenile. She pulled out one of her kitchen chairs and sat down, leaving the last of the groceries unattended on the floor.

"You must've had a really bad day," Yuna said, reaching into one of the bags. "You bought an entire pint of Death By Chocolate ice cream. You only break out the big guns like this when something's really been pissing you off."

"I had a bad day," she admitted, putting her head in her arms and snorting. "I woke up this morning with a headache and I should just _not_ have gone anywhere."

"So whatever happened with that guy, anyway?" Her friend asked, sitting down next to her. "You kicked the guardrail… then what?"

"Then he got kind scared because I put a dent in it," Yuffie said. "And he gave me a check for $100 but I don't know if it'll take, and even if it does, I don't know how I'll be able to afford the rest of it."

"How much does it cost to get a bumper welded back on?" Yuna asked.

"About $400."

She hissed as if she was in great pain and shook her head. "I don't know where Brother is these days, or else I could have him do it for you. He'd probably use it as an excuse to steal my underwear, though."

Yuffie winced. "I think that $400 is much less than the price of incest. I doubt you'd want him hanging around your apartment, eating your food, using all the hot water, and playing with your underwear when you leave the house."

"Don't remind me, okay?" Yuna growled. On a more serious note, she added, "If you need any help with paying for your car, just let me know, all right? I'll see what I can do to help you out."

"Oh, no, Yuna, don't do that," she quickly said. "No, I'll find a way to pay for it. You're more strapped for cash than I am, I can't take your money."

"You will if I _make_ you take it."

"Yu-_na__…"_ She said.

"Yu-_ffie__,"_ Yuna said. "Look, I don't want to be in trouble for armed charity, but really, I know how hard it is for you to gather up that money. So please, just take a little. You can't afford the $300 left to pay for it, so why not?"

Yuffie rubbed her forehead. "Okay, but I won't take more than one-fifty."

"Good, sold!" She said triumphantly as she stood up and finished putting Yuffie's groceries away. "I gotta get down to work in ten minutes, but I get paid tonight so I can give you a check then. And if you _must,_ you can come down and say hi to me. I'm backstage today."

Yuna got up and left Yuffie's apartment, heading to her own to change into work clothes. She had to wear the clubs' uniform, a golden-yellow skirt and a white blouse with a black vest over it, even though she wasn't seen when she worked backstage with costuming.

In ten minutes she was stampeding down the stairs as fast as she could, tripping over the laces of her boots, since she hadn't time to lace them up properly. She burst into the backstage door and was immediately stared at by a dozen drag queens and a small handful of other costumers, all women.

"Am I late?" She asked.

"Right on time, sweetie," Cha-Cha said, winking at her. He looked a little odd, standing there in makeup and fake eyelashes and his hair let down and curled, looking very womanly except for the fact that he hadn't a shirt on and was conspicuously flat. "You wanna hand lacing up those boots?"

"Oh, would you?" She said, relieved that she wasn't in trouble for being late. The Cage-Girls were pretty good about it, but the other costumers usually got pissed off at her for being even two minutes late. They always said that she had no excuse for being late because she lived right upstairs.

As she and Cha-Cha started putting laces through all of the eyelets of her boots, Yuna vaguely heard the three other costumers murmuring amongst themselves.

"She's obnoxious. Thinks she can get all smarmy with the guys… girls… queens, just because she lives upstairs."

"I know, right? And she thinks she can get off being late because she lives upstairs. I live a twenty-minute bus ride away from here, and I've _never_ been late before!"

"Exactly… she's so snobby. Thinks she's so awesome."

Yuna was very quiet for a minute, and stopped lacing up her boot. She was intently picking up all of the conversation.

"Hey, Yuna, sweetie," Cha-Cha finished lacing both of her boots and put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't listen to them, they're just jealous because you're adorable and they're so skanky and fake." He paused. "And I _know_ skanky."

"You're ridiculous, Cha-Cha," Yuna said, giggling. She pulled herself to her feet and glanced at her watch. "Yeesh, you've got fifteen minutes to get your costume on!"

"I know, I know…" he said. "But you gotta help me pick one out, okay?" He smiled sweetly. Quietly, he added, "You're the best at this."

Yuna felt herself blushing. "Okay, so what are you singing this time around?"

"We're doing Pat Benatar, _Love Is A Battlefield,"_ he said. "Think you can come up with something?"

_It doesn't matter what they say in the papers_

_Cuz it's always been the same old scene._

_There's a new band in town but you can't get the sound_

_From a story in a magazine.___

_Aimed at your average teen.___

She nodded. She knew the song pretty well, so she started searching through the various trunks and closets for something for Cha-Cha. "While I'm waiting, put this on," she tossed him his "cleavage."

"Okay, sweetie."

Quickly she put together a costume for him, with a green layered prom dress and combat boots, over which she put a camouflage jacket. For a finishing touch she put his hair up and a ridiculous 80's bow barrette.

"Okay," she said. "All done, and it only took me five minutes!" She smiled at her accomplishment. A second later, the other singers walked up to her, admiring the job she had done with Cha-Cha and asking her if she could do _their_ costumes for _Love Is A Battlefield._ Cautiously, Yuna eyed the other costumers, who were looking venomously at her for stealing their business. Unlike the other employees, the costumers' pay was based on how well the Cage-Girls liked their work.

Deciding to ignore them, she put together costumes for the other five dancers for that song. Soon, the stage was bombarded with an army of drag-show prom queens and hookers in combat boots and camouflage.

"How predictable," she heard someone say behind her. She knew who it was but refused to acknowledge that she'd heard them. She went about picking reject costumes up off of the floor and putting them away.

"I know, right? Love is a battlefield… prom queens in combat boots. That's so stupid. I mean come on, I could have come up with something so much better than that. Besides, it's _nothing_ like the Pat Benatar video! I bet she hasn't seen it, otherwise she'd know what to do!"

"She's so _stupid,_ and she acted like she was all bashful about it." The costumer put on a mocking tone. "Oooh, I'm Yuna and I'm so shy. Ooh, Cha-Cha, you want me to make your costume? Oh, I _couldn't_ I simply _couldn't,_ here, I'll just put you in these _combat boots…"_

Laugher was apparent. Yuna looked down at her feet and stopped her movements. They were really bitchy about this. Just because she'd seen the music video didn't mean she actually had to stick with it!

_"How about a pair of pink sidewinders_

_And a bright orange pair of pants?"_

_"You could really be a Beau Brummel, baby,_

_If you just gave it half a chance."___

_Don't waste your money on a new set of speakers,_

_You get more mileage from a cheap pair of sneakers._

_Next phase, new wave, dance craze, anyways,_

_It's still rock and roll to me._

Yuna watched the show from backstage, pleased with how well her costumes seemed to work. What the hell did it matter what these other girls thought? She knew she'd done a good job on them, and it wasn't like she'd forced her idea on any of the performers.

When the song was over, the dancers came backstage and the next solo "lady" came out, in a blue checkered dress and red slippers and a picnic basket with a stuffed animal sticking out. _Over The Rainbow._ Yuna bit both of her lips to keep from laughing. Leave it up to a drag show to corrupt something as wholesome as _The Wizard Of Oz._

"Good work, Yuna," one of the performers said as he came in. "Awesome job on these costumes. Much better than the video."

A lot of similar comments came as the dancers came in and she felt good about herself. Never mind what those jealous costumers said, she was good at what she did. And she wasn't showing off, she was just doing her job.

"Here, Yuna," Cha-Cha said quietly, slipping something into her hand. "Good work tonight. And don't let them bitches bother you."

He walked away quickly, before she even looked at what he'd given her. When she looked in her hand, she saw a $50 bill folded neatly. She stared at it for a second and looked around for Cha-Cha to give it back to him, but he apparently knew that she would want to give it back, she he'd made himself scarce.

"Thanks, Cha-Cha," she murmured quietly.

0…0…0…0…0

Once again, the Three Musketeers were sitting at the bar in the Birdcage. Yuna had gotten off of work after four and a half hours and Yuffie had finally cooled down. Zephyr had come back from a doctor visit with a knee brace to keep her steady and a big bottle of painkillers.

"What happened to you?" Yuffie asked, concerned.

"Some silly bitch pushed my knees down on a pitchfork," she explained, pulling herself up onto the bar with her hands and her one good leg. "It's tender but nothing's broken and I don't need surgery or anything. Just hurts like a bitch."

"Language, Zephyr," Yuna warned. She didn't like it very much when Zephyr, or anyone, used bad language.

"All right, which do you prefer? Spanish? Italian? French? I can speak a little bit of Japanese but just enough to get arrested," the younger girl snapped back with her usual quick wit.

"You know, it would probably take me a day or so to come up with a comeback like that one," Yuffie commented.

"I know. That's why I'm here."

"Zephyr Maradei, you are a cruel young woman!"

"I know that, too," she replied with a smirk.

The three of them laughed as friends. It felt good to smile and laugh together as friends after the day's events. Inside jokes made them burst into peals of laughter at even the slightest reference.

"Will you please be quiet?" A young man a few bar stools down from them demanded. "Some of us don't enjoy listening to your squealing laughter. It hurts my ears." He had a whiny, nasal voice. Probably some rich mama's boy.

"We weren't being that loud, you know," Yuna said. "I'm sorry if we disrupted you."

He snorted. Then he took a closer look at them. "Hey, you girls were here a few days ago, giggling and squealing all over the place! You couldn't be any more obnoxious if you tried!"

"Excuse me?" Yuna lowered her head a little bit, like a dog with its' hackles raised. "We aren't disturbing anyone. If we annoyed you, we're very sorry but you must have very sensitive hearing because we weren't being loud at all."

"The three of you are a nuisance." He snorted. "You shouldn't be allowed back in here!"

_"What's the matter with the crowd I'm seeing?"_

_"Don't you know that they're out of touch?"_

_"Should I try to be a straight-A student?"_

_"If you are, then you think too much."_

"What in the world does it matter to you?" Zephyr asked, leaning over to glare at him. "We live upstairs, it's not like that actually _want_ to evict us."

"Oh, nice," he snorted in his martini. "Three whores living over a drag club. Or are you even ladies? You're probably guys who so desperately want to be women."

"Don't make me flash," Yuffie said.

"Don't you _dare.__"_ Yuna held onto her arm, digging her nails into her flesh.

"We have no quarrel with you," Zephyr said. "But if you have one with us, we can gladly take you outside and discuss it. A battle of wits, so to speak. Of course," she mused with a wicked glint in her eye, "a battle of wits might be an unfair one. You appear to be unarmed."

The man fumed and Zephyr stared unwavering at him, intending on unnerving him with her stare. It worked a lot of the time, but if he didn't give in, she didn't know what she would do.

Fortunately, he turned away and went back to his drink, and when he looked up briefly and noticed Zephyr still giving him a demonic stare, accompanied this time by her friends, he got up and walked away quickly, making a nasty face a another young woman as he walked by her. As soon as he was gone, the girls began snorting in their sodas.

"People like that are just a waste of oxygen, aren't they?" Yuffie asked. "I mean he's just got nothing better to do than to come to a drag club, insult random girls, insult the Cage-Girls, and then be too chicken to do anything."

"You have to admit, though, that they're poking fun of them is a spectacular sport," Zephyr told them, turning her attention back to her ginger ale.

"Yea… still, it's been one of those days where no one has been leaving me alone," Yuna said. "I think we've all had that kind of a day, haven't we?" Both of her friends nodded slowly.

"I guess it's just because we're nobodies, you know? We're just a couple of girls who haven't money or fashion sense despite the fact that we're artists and costume designers," the youngest said.

"Yea, I get that feeling a lot," Yuffie sighed. "I guess you really have to be material for anyone to pay attention to you."

"Not really true," Yuna said. When her friends looked at her, she elaborated. "Well, they would just be warm-weather friends. Just being friends with you because you look cool. The people who are real friends don't care."

"Like us, huh?" Yuffie put one arm around either one of them, practically cutting off their air circulation.

_Don't you know about the new fashion, Honey?_

_All you need are looks and a whole lotta money._

_It's the next phase, new wave, dance craze,_

_Anyways,_

_It's still rock and roll to me._

"Lets get out of here and go upstairs," Yuna suggested. "I've been down here since four and I'd like to go spend some time bonding with my sofa and my remote-control."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Zephyr said, sliding off of the bar and carefully regaining her balance on the floor. "I'll bring the popcorn and the movies."

"I'll bring the ice cream… goodness knows I can spare it," Yuffie offered with a smile.

"Okay, it sounds like a plan to me," Yuna said. "I'll meet you guys in my apartment in ten minutes, okay? And yes, Yuffie, you can use the window, since you seem to want to get me back for using yours."

And with that they parted company, only to regroup later in Yuna's apartment and fall asleep on the sofa watching movies.

_Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound,_

_Funny,_

_But it's still rock and roll to me._

0…0…0…0…0

That took me a lot longer to write than I thought it would have. Wow, a week and a half. Well I hope this chapter makes up for that fact. It's actually a really long chapter, a lot longer than I would have thought it would be. I hope my other ones aren't quite this long… it's tiring to think of all of this! Anyway, please review because I'm such a review junkie that I'll die of withdrawal if I don't get them.

P.S: I don't intend on making every single solitary chapter a songfic chapter, just to let you know. The next one will probably be a regular old-fashioned chapter. __


	3. Second Encounter

Well, I had a disappointing lack of reviews for the last chapter but I guess it was a bad weekend to post. A lot of people probably went away for the weekend because there was Election Day and everything. But I shan't be giving up yet. I haven't really gotten in much thought about this chapter lately but I'll give it a go.

And on another note, I think Yuna's drag-queen friend Cha-Cha will have a bigger part in this story than I had intended. I mean he won't be major or anything but I only thought that I'd mention him once and that was it but he seemed to have snuck into the last chapter. Sneaky little queer.

0…0…0…0…0

"Is there a particular reason why I'm helping you out with this?" Zephyr asked, balancing on a ladder to hang some black glittery fringe from the doorways in the bar. Yuna and Yuffie were a few yards away, arguing with a strobe light behind the bar.

"Because the manager promised to pay you for your time," Yuna said. "Besides, you're getting to spend time with us… what could be better than that?"

"Fatal injury," Zephyr answered without missing a beat.

"You set yourself up for that one," Yuffie said. Suddenly there was a bight flash, and the strobe light started to work. "Hey, cool! This old thing still works!"

"Of course it works, Yuffie," Yuna stood up and dusted her knees off. "This thing has been around for longer than you've been alive. They use it every year when the Girls perform 'Thriller' at the Halloween dance."

Yuffie shuddered. "What scares me is that drag queens looks more like Michael Jackson than the real Michael Jackson."

"Can someone please help me hang these before the blood in my arms drains into my chest?" Zephyr called helplessly from the doorway, holding the fringe up while she stapled it to the wooden molding over the door.

"Well, you're always complaining about being too flat—maybe the extra blood will get you up to a C-cup!" Yuffie called back, making herself giggle at her comment.

"Very sodding funny, Yuffie," the younger girl yelled. She was trying to finish up her work before she fell off the ladder, or lost all feeling in her arms—or both.

"Yuffie! Go up there and help the poor thing before she comes down here and eats you alive!" Yuna demanded, pointing in the general direction of the door.

"She would, too," Yuffie muttered, making her way over to the door and reliving Zephyr of the work. "Okay, Zeph, go see what Yuna needs you to do. You'd think they'd give you things appropriate to your height." She finished with the fringe on the door and took the ladder to hang the rest.

Zephyr went to where Yuna was digging around in a box of decorations. "Need help?"

"Not really. We've done everything we need to do. The strobe light is working, the black light lanterns are up, we have the ultraviolet paint on the walls, the stage is set and we have fake blood oozing out of the ventilation shafts."

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas…" Zephyr said mockishly.

"Oh, stop that, you!" Yuna snapped. "You're terrible!"

She just gave a quick, wicked little grin before looking around the club. Everything _was_ set up just fine for the party tomorrow night. The club was closed today and tomorrow to get everything ready and for the Cage Girls to rehearse their act. Every year they did "Thriller" but they also did a few new dances. This year they were trying a Beetlejuice type thing.

"This party is such a big deal here," Zephyr noted after a minute. Yuffie had finished with the fringe on the doorways and taken the ladder back into the storage closet. She came to join them, sitting on the bar and eating lunch.

"Well, yea," she said, cramming a handful of potato chips into her mouth. "It'sh an excuse to up the admishun price." She tried to talk around her mouthful of chips and instead gave up talking and finished chewing. "Besides, it's fun. You oughtta come this year, Zephyr. You've never been to one before."

"And I don't see any reason for me to start now," she quickly said.

"Come on, why don't you want to?" Yuffie asked, nudging her with her shoulder. "It's gonna be tons of fun!"

Zephyr sighed, trying to think of a way to explain her own introverted nature to a young woman who was so extroverted that her DNA was practically spilling out. "Look, I just don't like huge crowds on a recreational basis," she said. "Besides, I have to work, anyway." She paused, then decided to add, "And I just never got into the spirit of Halloween. I mean… I've lived here for ten years, in this country, but where I lived, Halloween wasn't really a big thing. And I suppose I just never got into it."

"Understandable," Yuna said, before Yuffie could open her mouth again. "Well, I'd love it you could come but if it makes you uncomfortable, then don't feel pressured."

"Who's feeling pressured?" Zephyr asked. "I was just trying to make her understand my point of view."

"Of course," Yuffie chimed in, having finished their potato chips. "You're immune to pressure."

"I am." Zephyr bristled. She really was immune to all forms of peer pressure. She could never be guilted into doing anything, and when coupled with her natural stubbornness, made her someone that most people chose not to argue with.

"Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find us," Yuna said. "And we should probably find you a costume, just in case you decide to come." She hopped from the bar, extending her hand to Zephyr, who also slid from the bar and stood next to her friend.

"Can I help?" Yuffie asked eagerly, preparing to jump off the bar, but the other two stopped her.

"No, no, I'm not sure I trust you," Zephyr said carefully. "You stay here and do… whatever it is your species does."

"I resent the implications made by that statement!" Yuffie hollered as Yuna and Zephyr disappeared backstage to look for costume materials.

"Just a moment here while we establish some ground rules, you and me," Zephyr said once they were amongst trunks and wardrobes full of costume material. "You're not putting me in pink."

"Okay, no pink," Yuna repeated. "That's a gimmie. What else?"

"Nothing lacy. Nothing see-through."

"No desire to look like Madonna, hm?" She rummaged through the trunk closest to her feet. "I suppose a bunny costume is out, right?"

"Um… a bunny costume. Meaning like a cute little cuddly rabbit or a Playboy Club waitress?" She leaned in to try to get a better look.

"The Playboy Club waitress," Yuna said.

"Okay, next idea," Zephyr said quickly. She, too, started rummaging through a closet for things. She recovered a long dark green hunters' cloak. "This is cool." She pulled it from the hanger and draped it around her shoulders. Although the cloak was meant to come to the shins on the wearer, when she put it on, it came all the way to her feet, barely skimming the tops of her sneakers.

"Oh, that thing," Yuna said, nodding as she stood and dusted her jeans off. "Yea, none of the dancers like it because it doesn't float like the other coats and dresses do."

The black-haired girl wandered towards a mirror, checking the feel and the look of the cloak. "I like it. I think it'd be brilliant in a costume."

"If you like it that much, why not take it with you?" Yuna shrugged. When her friend looked at her with disbelief, she added, "It's just been sitting in here gathering dust for years now. No one likes it because it's so heavy."

Zephyr yipped with happiness and hugged her around the waist, squeezing. "Oh, thank you Yuna! Thank you so much!" She admired the cloak again before saying, "If I had a little yellow dress, I could be Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt."

"I bet you that I could find one for you in here. And you have those brown boots with the points at the top and a bow. And I can find you some Greek-looking costume jewelry back here. I've gotten most of mine back here as well."

"Yuna, I love you. You're just so awesome."

"Don't sweat it, Zephyr."

0…0…0…0…0

It was finally the night of the Birdcage's annual Halloween bash. Really it was more like the regular crowd, some guests, and a few random passerby's in costume watching a bunch of drag shows. But it was fun and there were drinks and an abundance of candy.

Yuna and Yuffie had not volunteered to work the party shift this year, since Zephyr was around and they didn't want to risk leaving her alone. She got very nervous in crowds, and her friends were also afraid that she would get upset with someone and start biting. So instead they were sitting at a table around a bowl of chocolates, laughing and talking and spotting the women who obviously used Halloween as an excuse to expose as much skin and wear the slinkiest costumes that they could.

They themselves were in costume as well, albeit hardly inappropriate at all. Yuna had, in fact, managed to scrape together a costume for Zephyr last-minute. It included a short but rather loose yellow dress and a handful of brown belts, knee-high brown boots and the green cape that they'd found backstage, along with a claw necklace and some beaded bracelets. Yuna's gypsy costume was a long flowy skirt with at least five long triangles of cloth tied around the waist and around her belt, some of which contained brass discs that clinked like bells when she walked. She wore a Renaissance poet shirt pulled down over her shoulders and a wrap-around corset, as opposed to one that had shoulder straps. She wore tons of gold bracelets, beads, earrings, and bells and bangles. Yuffie was sort of using Halloween as an excuse to dress slinky, as she wore a little black skirt, black stockings, combat boots, and a lace-up velvet top. A long furry tail trailed from the waist of her skirt and a pair of ears were perched in her hair. To top it all off, a red ribbon was tied about her neck and attached to a little bell, and whiskers were painted on her cheeks and her nose and upper lip were colored black with lipstick.

"You know, people watching should be an Olympic event," Zephyr observed after a while, watching still more people pour into the club. It was quite a crowd tonight—bigger than usual for Halloween.

"That'd be the only event you'd ever win a medal in," Yuffie joked.

"Thanks ever so." Zephyr rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the door.

Two seconds later, Yuna piped up with, "Hey, do those guys over there look familiar?" As if on cue, the others quickly turned their heads in the direction Yuna was looking.

Three young men stood off to the edge of the bar furthest away from the stage. They had a few glasses and a basket of potato chips with them, and they were casually looking around the club. They stood out, though—they weren't in costume and nearly everyone else in the club was.

"Now that you mention it, they _are_ familiar." Zephyr murmured, tilting her whole body to try to get a closer look. "That blonde looks like the guy we saved from Lola a week and some ago."

This caught Yuna's attention, it seemed, as she also tried to get a better look at him, waiting for him to turn. "You know, you're right? Wow, who'd've though? I didn't even think they _liked_ being in a drag club."

Yuffie shrugged, which was the most audible answer among them. She was _also_ busy with her eyes on one of them, apparently trying to get a good gander at an ass. After following the gaze, they managed to pinpoint the ass, attached to the young man wearing all leather. It showed off everything perfectly.

"Getting to the _bottom_ of things, Yuffie?" Zephyr nudged her foot with hers.

"Stop playing footsie with me!" She hissed. "He might get the wrong idea!"

Zephyr slowly put her forehead in her hand and leaned her elbow on the table. "It's people like you who make people like me commit homicides."

"That blonde one is kinda cute though," Yuna said in a hushed tone. "He turned around and I got a look at his face. He's got the most amazing blue eyes I've ever seen."

"Which blonde?" Zephyr asked without lifting her head from behind her hand. "Goldilocks or Platinum?"

It took Yuna a second to figure out that she was talking about. "The yellow blonde. I've never gone for such a light color blonde. It almost looks like he has silver hair."

Zephyr nodded slowly, glancing discreetly in their direction to get a look at the platinum-blonde young man she remembered as Riku. She also thought he looked familiar, not just from the other night. She could swear she had seen him somewhere before.

"That's weird," Yuffie said after a while. "Why would they come around here? I mean everyone who lives around here knows the Birdcage is a drag club, so they must have had to come a long way to get here."

"Maybe they're looking for you two," Zephyr suggested, swinging her feet in her chair. Even at seventeen her feet didn't touch the floor when she sat in the chair. Swinging her feet like that made her look a lot younger than she really was.

"Why us two and not you?" Yuna asked.

"No one comes back for a second look at me," she explained gloomily. "Except to assess whether this is my real hair or if I'm just wearing a considerable number of extensions."

"Come off it, Zephyr, no one thinks you have extensions," Yuna said. "And you need to stop putting yourself down like this. I mean really, you're no ugly stepsister, I just think guys don't see what you have to offer."

"Appropriate height for a decent blowjob?"

"Ladies, you should really keep that mouth on a leash," a man said. Curious and a little embarrassed, Zephyr turned around to look at who was standing behind her. It was a man in a hooded sweatshirt and a pair of jeans and she didn't recognize him at all.

"Guys, there's a man behind me…" she said very quietly and cautiously, leaning as far forward in her chair as she could go.

"Just tell him he's not tall enough," Yuffie said, before laughing hysterically at her own joke.

"That's okay, I don't go for girls," he said casually before pulling up a chair beside Yuna. "How're you girls doing?"

"What the bloody hell is this?" Zephyr was practically climbing the back of her chair. "You say you don't go for girls and you're inviting yourself to sit down with us… _who are you?"_

"You'd probably recognize me in makeup."

All three were quiet for a minute before Yuna managed to picture the man in makeup and she looked at him with total disbelief.

"Oh my god," she said. Then she smiled. "Cha-Cha, you're out of drag! You look so… so… _different!"_

"Lookin' good, Cha-Cha," Yuffie said, giving him a thumbs-up.

"You look a lot more like a bloke than I would have imagined," Zephyr said, calmer now that she knew who it was.

"Thanks, sweetie." He winked at her.

"You know, until you open your mouth or walk or something that gives away the fact that you're a raving homosexual."

"What?"

"She means that when you walk and talk, you're…" Yuna paused to think up an appropriate phrase.

"Screaming queen?" The answer surprisingly came from a new fifth party.

Yuffie and Zephyr, who spooked very easily, yipped and jumped out of their seats from the fright. At the last open space at the table stood the tan blonde young man with blue eyes whom they had rescued from dancing with Lola that night. He'd identified himself then as Tidus.

"You shouldn't scare them like that," Yuna said, turning in her chair to face him. "Between the two of them, they've got enough pent-up nervous energy to blow up a space station."

"Well, that's a comforting thought," he said, grinning a sly but nevertheless attractive grin. "So, do you remember me?"

"You're the guy we rescued from Lola. Tidus, right?"

"Yep, that's me. I'm glad you remember." He smiled again. Apparently, he knew he looked good smiling.

"Of course we remember. I personally pulled a stomach muscle. And you've been the brunt of all of our jokes since it happened," Zephyr said. Yuna, Yuffie, and Cha-Cha all put their faces in their hands. Zephyr's mouth was famous for going off at the least opportune moments. "So why'd you come back around here when you knew there were horny drag queens about?"

"Because there's also cute girls, who happen to actually be girls."

Both Yuna and Yuffie made a grab to cover Zephyr's mouth before she could say anything in response to that.

"What _are_ you doing here?" Yuna asked. "I mean you must live pretty far away from here if you didn't know that the Birdcage was a drag club."

"Oh, I live about a twenty-minute drive from here. Celadon View. You know where that is?"

Three pairs of eyes went fairly wide as Tidus' friends walked over, obviously used to him chatting up girls in bars.

"You can afford to live there? What on _earth_ do your parents do?"

"He lives with his godfather and he's always got to work the location of his house into conversations," the brown-haired young man with the scar between his eyes said. Yuffie remembered his name was Squall. He was sending daggered glares into the back of Tidus' skull, which the blonde seemed to be totally oblivious of.

"That's silly." Zephyr had gotten her mouth uncovered. "Why bring up where you live? No one cares."

Quietly, Yuffie leaned in and whispered to her friend, "Zephyr, the houses on Celadon View are all mansions. Huge houses."

Also whispering, she replied, "I know, I work there. It still doesn't have much of an effect on me. It's just a house."

"You work around where we live?" Tidus asked, exposing the fact that all three of them lived in the same general area. They must have been from incredibly wealthy families, the girls thought, because the houses there were enormous Victorian-styled mansions on acres and acres of property. A lot of those people owned horses or enormous granite swimming pools.

"What, exactly, do you do?" Riku asked. Zephyr was still convinced that she knew him from somewhere but she couldn't think of _where _she knew him from. "Do you clean houses or something?"

Zephyr inadvertently snickered a little bit. "No, I don't clean houses. I can't even keep my own flat tidy, so I really don't think that anyone would trust me to keep theirs in shape. I work at a private stable. Really nice, well-to-do family, they breed horses and have boarders."

Squall sent a sidelong glance at Riku. He was about to say something when Tidus averted his attention from Yuna's cleavage back to the conversation.

"So you're from around here." The question was probably directed towards Zephyr.

"Um, yea… why?"

"Well, you have an accent, so I thought you were a visiting relative or something. You know, the European cousin who's all prim and proper. You're not prim and proper or anything, I'm just saying your accent sounds like you are—but you _could_ be proper, without the accent playing a role in it, although it might be, but not to say that just because you _have_ an accent that _sounds_ prim and proper means that you really _are_ prim and proper, but maybe you _could _be which has nothing to do whatso ever with your way of talking." He paused for a brief moment and noticed everybody at the table was staring at him. "I just made an ass of myself, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did," Zephyr said. "And I must say, I've never seen better craftsmanship." She shook her head and glanced at Riku as she did so and suddenly realized where she knew him from. He was always hanging around the stable where she worked. Up near the house or at the fence, spoiling ponies and small horses with treats. She didn't know if he was a boarder or another worker, but from hearing that he lived around there, she figured he was probably a boarder.

"So then where are you from?" Riku asked.

"I live in a flat upstairs."

"No, I mean where were you born or where were you raised? You're obviously not from around here because you have an accent and your dialogue is different."

"I'm glad you based it on dialogue and not just the accent," she commented in what was, for her, a very warm tone. "I'm British. I was born in Yorkshire."

"Well, I think I'll relinquish my chair to someone who's actually in this conversation," Cha-Cha said. They'd all forgotten he was there, listening. He got up and put his hand on Yuna's shoulder. "Have a good night tonight, sweetie. And don't do anyone I wouldn't do."

"Night, Cha-Cha. Go have some fun." She watched him walk off.

"Didn't he mean any_thing?"_ Squall asked, eyeing Cha-Cha nervously as he disappeared into the crowd of people.

"No." Yuna noted with some humor the brief widening of eyes of the three newcomers. They were obviously not used to the same sort of people that she and her friends were used to. It was probably largely due to the fact that they all lived over the club.

There was a long, awkward silence in the conversation. Eyes shifted from person to person but no one said a thing. Yuffie was the only one really moving—her shoulders were trembling like she was manning a jackhammer. She started to let out little giggles before giving in and bursting out into hysterical laughter.

"Well at least _someone_ said something," Yuna said. She, too, was beginning to get a case of the giggles. "What are you _laughing_ at anyway?"

Gasping, Yuffie managed to get out, "I have no idea." Then she started laughing so hard that her eyes watered. Yuna started laughing pretty hard, too, with her head down on the table and her whole body trembling.

Squall, Tidus, and Riku were looking at the pair as if they had lost their minds and seemed a little relieved that Zephyr hadn't burst out laughing. It meant that at least _one_ of them was sane.

Eventually, Zephyr, too, started to laugh, albeit very quietly. At the same time, Tidus started to snort with suppressed laughter and Riku followed. The only person who wasn't laughing was Squall, who was obviously giving himself a hernia trying not to make a sound.

A few minutes passed before their laughter was spent and they were panting and leaning on the table, chairs, and each other for support.

"Isn't it shocking how absolutely hysterical _nothing_ can be?" Yuffie asked. The ice was broken between them. Laughter was usually the cure for all awkward moments.

Conversations flitted between them all. Yuffie had even managed to get Squall to pipe up and talk some, but he always gave the quickest most concise answers that he could. Tidus, Yuna, and Zephyr were having an argument about plastic surgery and Riku was watching with an amused expression on his face, but his gaze lingered a while longer on Zephyr than it did on the other two. Any apparent discomforts that any of them had were gone or well-hidden, and there were no awkward moments or anything.

"I can't get over how familiar you look," Zephyr said to Riku later on. "I swear, I've seen you somewhere before, but I just can't remember where and it's driving me mad."

"I was thinking the same thing. It's really aggravating, isn't it? It's making my brain itch."

"Hey, Riku," Squall appeared, with a very limp-looking Tidus hanging off of his arm. "We gotta go. Mister Blondie Blue-Eyes got himself soused and just made a pass at a wax statue of Dracula."

"He's old enough to drink?" Yuna asked, helping to prop him up on the other side when he began to drip to the floor almost like liquid.

"No, he has a fake ID, which I was sure we'd confiscated."

"He must have a printing press for those things in his house," Riku groaned, getting up to take Yuna's place holding his friend up. Before he went, he leaned over to Zephyr and asked, "Will I see you again?"

"Only if you want to," she replied. "I live in a flat over the club… you can come by if you like."

He looked a little discouraged by her reply until Yuna whispered to him, "Don't look so down. Considering her normal behavior towards other people, that's practically flirting. I think she likes you."

Squall and Riku carried Tidus out of the club and threw him in the back seat of a black jeep with a less-than-cautious air before getting into the front and driving off. Yuna and Yuffie had gone to see them off and make sure that they got out all right but Zephyr had stayed inside. When they came back, they found her getting ready to go back upstairs.

"Sick of us now, right?" Yuna asked. "I mean, we're nowhere near as attractive as that Riku guy."

"What on earth are you talking about?" She demanded, looking murderous.

"Nothing." She and Yuffie walked on either side of her. "But he was cute, wasn't he?"

"Yes, all right, I find him attractive. Not saying I'd shag him or anything, just saying he's cute." When she noticed the sly little grin on her face, she snapped, "Well, what about you? You were all over Tidus."

"He was drunk and practically liquefied." Was Yuna's defense. Nonetheless a slight pink color tinted her cheeks as she spoke. It was true that she thought he was cute but he seemed so juvenile, even though he was probably eighteen or nineteen. Yuffie laughed at that.

"And you," Zephyr turned her attention towards her other friend. "You were trying to chat up a man who was apparently missing the gene that makes men responsive to women in skimpy costumes trying to talk to them."

"It's amazing I let you get away with saying stuff like that to me," Yuffie said. "If it was anyone else I think I'd strangle them."

"That's because we're friends," Yuna said, changing positions and putting her arms over their shoulders. "Only the closest of friends can be cruel and cynical with you and you love them anyway."

"That and the fact that putting up with you two gets me free drinks and food down here," Zephyr added. Yuna tightened her grip around her neck.

"So _are_ we gonna see those guys again?" Yuffie asked, ducking out of Yuna's grip. "I mean they all seemed game for it."

"Squall looked like he was passing a stone." Zephyr grunted as she pulled herself from her friends' death grip. Once she was free, she added, "He didn't seem really talkative."

"But he said, 'See you around' when he left. I mean for a guy like that, if he says see you around, he usually means it," Yuffie pointed out. Zephyr had to agree to that, since she was mostly the same way.

"I don't know… I think we probably will see them again, whether we like it or not," Yuna said. "They know where we work and where we live now."

"The only one I'd be worried about is Tidus," Yuffie said. "He seems like the type who'd start to stalk a girl."

"I could ask him," she said. "I have his phone number."

"Did he _give that to you?"_ Yuffie grabbed it to look at it. It was hardly legible.

"No, he gave it to the wax Dracula when he thought it was a woman and I picked it up to make sure that no one else could get their hands on it and maybe track him down and do something scary."

"So you were just being a good Samaritan, right?" Zephyr said with a wry grin. "You won't ever use that number for evil purposes, like calling and asking for a date?"

"Of course not," she said, tucking the scrap of paper back into her cleavage where she'd put it earlier since she didn't have pockets. "Who needs a date when I have you two? Come on, lets go home."

0…0…0…0…0

Okay, well, there it is. Not much happened in this chapter which makes me wonder how I managed to make it nearly 5000 words. It was really just a second meet-up between them, and next chapter will have some individual interaction between the girls and the guys. The songfic chapters will be coming after they've sort of paired off.

And even though I doubt anyone caught it, Zephyr works for Riku's family's stable. That's why she thinks he looks familiar and he thinks _she_ looks familiar. It'll come into play later on. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, and I will be really happy if you review because I'm such an addict.


	4. Give and Take

Well, I guess it's that time again. I'm sitting here bored out of my effing skull and dreading this afternoon when I have to go to my mom's friends house for Thanksgiving dinner. All grown-ups. Joy. But enough about my problems, I know you're anxious to read. I had a few snippet ideas over the last two weeks for this chapter so I decided that it'd be a good thing to start it over the four-day weekend.

0…0…0…0…0

Yuna was, for lack of better words, bored to tears. It had been very slow at the Birdcage the last few days and when there were hardly any people, they didn't do the shows as planned and saved them for when there _were_ people. So… she was bored.

"It's always slow around this time, Yuna, you know that," Cha-Cha said, sliding a drink over to her and sitting up on the bar like a lady from an old movie. "Besides, the lull is nice before the holidays start and people really _need_ to come in for drinks."

"True… holidays are the busy season here. But it's been so boring like this for days, and I can't stand it! I'm getting all jumpy and anxious." She swirled her drink around in her cup. It was just a soda since she couldn't stand the taste of alcohol.

"I wish there was something for me to do to help you out, but I'm stuck for things to do, too. I've started going in public wearing two different shoes and two different socks and seeing who notices."

"Cha-Cha, you're a drag queen," Yuna said. "The absolute _last thing_ people notice about you is your footwear."

"I figured that was part of my problem." He smiled as she laughed. He liked seeing Yuna smile or laugh, since she usually had a lot on her mind.

"I just wish something _interesting_ would happen!" She put her head down hard on her arms on the bar. Two seconds later a car screeched outside and ran up on the curb, knocking down the signs posted outside, hitting the street lamp, and nearly taking out the front door.

"That interesting enough for you, Yuna-girl?" He asked, Jumping down and heading for the door. "Come on, we should go see if anyone got hurt or something." Two or three other people from inside the bar also went to go see what happened outside. A Thunderbird had run up on the curb after blowing out a tire and narrowly avoiding a half a dozen pedestrians outside. The driver looked a little dazed but most of all concerned that he might have hit someone. He stumbled out of his car and looked around, checking to make sure there was no one stuck to his grate or underneath the car, and then asked if anyone had gotten hurt.

Yuna walked over to check and see if _he_ had gotten hurt, and Cha-Cha followed behind her, prepared to take off the driver's shirt and perform a thorough going-over if he was attractive enough.

"Yuna, that's the guy from Halloween!" Cha-Cha said, looking very surprised. "Is he stalking you or something?"

"I don't know, but lets first just go see if he's all right," she said, making her way through the people that had gathered around. "Hey, are you all right?" She asked, taking him by the arm and turning him to face her. It _was_ Tidus. He had a bruise near his eye and a nosebleed but other than that he didn't look too bad.

"Hey, it's you! I was comin' down here to see you but then I ran over a brick in the road and my tire blew out and I swerved and then I almost hit a bunch of people and almost crashed into the front door… did anyone get hurt?"

"No, you didn't hit anybody, but we'll probably have to get your car towed. You have a huge dent in the hood. But you should probably come inside and we'll get you some ice," she said. She led him inside and sat him down at the bar as Cha-Cha went to get him some ice in a plastic bag and a towel for his bruise.

"Hey, you're the guy from Halloween… you're Yuna's friend," Tidus said to Cha-Cha when he came back. "I didn't recognize you without a dress on."

"Oh, he's good," Cha-Cha said, handing over the ice pack. "You okay? You look like you got shaken up pretty badly."

"Yea, I'm fine now. I was just scared that I hit someone." He leaned back and put the ice over his eye.

"Are you sure?" Yuna asked. "You seemed a little bit dazed." She had an almost motherly tone about her.

"I'm positive. The worst thing that happened was my car… I don't think it'll start again," he said. "My windshield cracked anyway, so I don't think I could drive it anywhere, anyway." He wrinkled his nose.

"I'll go call for a tow truck," Cha-Cha said. "One of the guys over there is an ex of mine and we're still on good terms, so I think he'll do it for free if I ask him to." He walked off into the back to make the call.

"Hey, thanks a lot!" Tidus called after him. Then he turned his attention back to Yuna. "I was actually coming to see you," he admitted. "I wanted to say hi… and thanks for helping me when I was totally smashed and gave my phone number to a statue."

"I do stuff like that all the time around here," she said. "Besides, you're pretty calm when you're helplessly drunk." After a second, she added, "But don't take that as an invitation to get hammered again, because I don't really _enjoy_ helping drunks."

"Message received," he said with a wink. He watched Yuna go behind the bar and fill a glass, and then slide it over to him.

"Here, drink up," she told him. "It's just ginger ale, I don't need you any more disoriented than you already are."

"Thanks." Quietly he drank and Yuna took a seat atop the bar, he feet swinging a little on the inside.

They sat there for a moment in a comfortable silence before Cha-Cha came out with his hand covering the receiver on the phone.

"Hey, Blondie, good news. My guy is gonna come and pick up your car and tow it to the garage. Then you can go take a look and see if you wanna have it fixed there or not."

Tidus nodded gratefully as Cha-Cha went back into the back room to finish his call.

"Aren't you in school or anything?" He asked suddenly. "I mean I don't see you other than here… do you work full-time?"

"Yea… I finished high school and then started working here full time, mostly behind the bar. Then Cha-Cha found out that I'm good at making costumes and he pulled some strings and got me that job backstage. It's fun work and it pays pretty well so I'm not complaining." She tilted her head. "What about you?"

"I graduated last year… I'm sorta taking some time away from school for a while before I go to college."

"How much time are you thinking about taking off?" She sounded quite confused. He was nineteen… why hadn't he gone back to school?

"I dunno… either until I get bored or until I actually figure out what I wanna do with my life. Everyone sort of expected me to be a blitzer, cuz my dad played blitzball and I did, too, for a while. But I got bored with it. I guess it got so competitive that it wasn't even fun anymore."

"I guess your goal in life is just to have fun, huh?" She asked casually. "Have a good time, live on the edge."

"Sure… doesn't everybody wanna do that?" He asked.

Yuna sighed and shook her head. He was probably pretty spoiled and didn't really have to do too much for himself his whole life. He probably didn't understand that people had responsibilities. That particular trait in people annoyed her considerably.

"It's never been my goal," she told him. "Having fun is never really something that I focus all of my energy on."

"So then what do you try to do?"

She thought about her answer briefly before replying slowly, "Survive. Get along. Just… keep going. Sometimes I just live from paycheck to paycheck. Between utilities and food and school, there's hardly any money left."

"Wow, that's tough," he told her.

"It is. But I survive. I don't go looking for a good time, but sometimes it finds me, and that's enough to keep me going. I guess I've just learned to laugh at everyday things when I see them in a different light."

"You're kinda serious, Yuna," Tidus said. "Sometimes going out and looking for trouble can be refreshing."

"Maybe," she said back. "But maybe being serious every once in a while can help you to grow up." She jumped off the bar and walked into the back room to talk with Cha-Cha, leaving Tidus still on the bar, looking very confused about what had just happened.

0…0…0…0…0

Yuffie loved spending her lunch in the park. Her classes were finished for today and she was glad to be in the mid-fall sunshine, basking like a lizard on a bench while she watched the people jogging, cycling, walking, and skating along the paths. Every so often she would have to hide her eyes when 50-year-old men in spandex shorts jogged past.

Other than the occasional flab display, it was a nice day. There were some clouds and the air was crisp, but the sun was warm and bright and only occasionally obstructed by a cloud. She nearly fell asleep on the bench in the sun. There wasn't anybody else around the bench so she spread out with a book and got comfortable with her coat on her lap like a blanket.

When the wind began to blow, her coat flew off of her lap and flopped across the grass. Yuffie leaped up to try and grab it, but every time she got close, the wind would blow her coat again and push it out of her reach.

"Don't you run away from me like that, you stupid little jacket you!" She yelled as she tripped after it. She was nearly on all fours from walking bent down so that she would be able to grab her jacket, but it didn't seem to help at all.

She chased it down the path until it wrapped itself around someone's long black pants and black leather boots.

She took this opportunity to grab her coat before it could run away again.

"You can't escape from me, you filthy son of a bitch!" She said triumphantly.

A voice loomed above her, _"Excuse_ me?"

She looked up into the deep blue eyes of a young man standing over her. It had been _his_ feet and legs that had stopped her jacket from being blown into oblivion—or worse, into that pond. But as far as his _face_ went… he looked sort of familiar.

"What did you just call me?"

"Um… I wasn't talking to you," she said. "I… I was…" she stammered. Then she decided she might as well take the chance, "I was talking to my coat!"

Pause.

"To your coat." He repeated as she got up and brushed herself off.

"Yea, it flew away in the wind and I had to run to catch it," she explained.

"You were talking to your coat."

"Oh, come on," she put her arms through the sleeves very quickly when the wind started the blow again so that it wouldn't take her jacket with it. "You act like you've never tried to coax an inanimate object into doing what you want it to do!"

"Can't say that I've ever had to do that," he said. He looked at her a moment and then said, "You look familiar… haven't I met you before?"

Yuffie nodded. "Maybe if I put on a pair of cat ears, it'd ring a bell."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean? I'm not some sick fetishist!"

"No, no!" She quickly shook her head to clear up the confusion. "No, you met me at the Birdcage on Halloween! Remember? I was dressed up like a cat!"

Another pause.

"I remember now. You were the one that was constantly trying to make me talk." He nodded slowly.

"Yea, that was me!" She sounded almost proud of the fact that she had not let him alone for the entire time he was there. He had been almost thankful that Tidus had gotten himself drunk, just so that he could _leave _her.

"Mm-hmm," he nodded again, trying to put her off by not speaking so he could make his escape.

She noticed him backing up slowly. "Hey, where're you going?" She asked. "Squall? Are you all right? You seem a little bit on edge."

Squall winced. He hated his name. That was bad enough. Now a loudmouthed girl knew his name. That was really bad.

"Whatever." He tried his definitive response but that didn't seem to put her off like he'd hoped it would.

"What, did I scare you or something? I swear to you my coat wasn't answering me! Come on, lighten up a little bit!" She half walked, half trotted up to him to catch up.

"Can't you take a hint?" He snapped. "I don't wanna talk!"

"Geez, you're such a stiff. I don't think I've seen you smile, except for maybe once." When she realized he wasn't going to stop and talk to her, she shrugged and turned away. "Anyway… thanks for stopping my jacket from blowing away. Even though if you'd actually known about it you probably would have moved just so I'd've had to chase it longer." She waved behind her back even though she was convinced that he wasn't looking at her.

A few heavy clouds were starting to gather, and it looked like rain. Yuffie figured it'd be best just to go home before it started. She picked up her bag and her book, which had thankfully not walked away while she was away from the bench, and started on the walk home. It was a nice day when she started that morning, so she decided to walk rather than drive to her classes. There was only one bus that went from the Birdcage to the college during the day, and she knew that she would miss it if she tried to catch it. Plus she didn't have exact change, and the bus driver would give her that smug, smirky look and tell her to get off the bus.

It was a wonder she could still smile like this all the time when it appeared that the universe had something against her.

It started to rain. Cold, pelting raindrops that went straight down and soaked her clothes as she walked. She clutched her coat tighter around herself and kept her head down against the wind. The day had gone from warm fall sun to cold November rain. She could only hope that by her birthday it would be a little warmer.

The pavement beneath her feet began to get slippery as she walked and every so often she would have to move out of the way of a passing car or bike spraying up water. Her pants were soaked from walking through puddles and every so often, she would not be able to get out of the way when something came by and her entire side would be splashed.

The rain got harder and pelted down in big drops. She pulled up her hood and clutched the coat tighter around herself but it didn't do very much good; her pants were getting wet halfway up her shins and she was starting to shiver. Maybe it was a bad idea to waste time in the park today.

Finally, she sought shelter under an awning in front of a little grocer. She shivered and huddled close to a window unit that was giving off some heat and tried to dry her coat and pants off in front of it so it wouldn't be so miserable on the way home. She was only a few blocks away, but a few blocks felt like the Tour de France in weather like this.

Maybe if she stood under here for a while where it was nice and warm, she could wait the storm out in front of the warm window unit. Yuffie grinned to herself and she warmed her hands in front of it. Yes, she would stand here and wait out the worst of the rain, and go home nice and warm and toasty.

After ten minutes, the rain was still as heavy as before and the window unit had just been turned off. It was starting to get cold under her nice safe awning and she bundled herself tight inside her coat again, resigned to have to walk the rest of the way in the dumping rain.

As she walked as far from the road as possible, Yuffie got the eerie sense that she was being followed. Her stalker didn't waste time on being inconspicuous, though, because as she turned around she saw a dark blue Jaguar pulling to a stop at the curb. Unlike most expensive cars, the windows were not tinted and she clearly saw the driver.

"Squall?" She asked, confused, walking towards the driver's side window. "What are you doing here, are you lost? Do you need directions or something?"

Squall shook his head and very slightly gestured the seat next to him. "Get in, it's too nasty out here to be walking home."

"It's no trouble, really…" she began.

"Just get in," he said.

"Well… okay. Thank you." Yuffie made the wise decision not to look a gift horse in the mouth and got into the car quickly. It was warm, but she felt bad about getting his black leather seats all wet.

He didn't say anything as he slowly pulled away from the curb.

"Thank you very much," she said. "I… can I pay you back or something? Gas money? Clean my dripping off of your seats? Something? Anything?"

Heavy sigh. "Look, miss… Yuffie," he hesitated before he said her name. "I'm… sorry for the way I acted before. In the park. I was rude to you and this is my way of making it up to you."

This shocked her a little bit. She did _not_ expect this sort of a reply out of a guy she had pretty much concluded was a total stiff. He pulled up in front of the Birdcage and even turned around so that she wouldn't have to walk around the car to get out.

Yuffie hesitated before getting out of the car. She _did_ want to pay him back for going out of his way to give her a ride.

"Are you sure there's nothing I can do for you? Maybe you can come upstairs and I can get you something warm to drink?"

"Yuffie," he said, eyes clenched shut. He appeared to be trying to control himself. "I am fine as I am, thank you. You'd best go inside, now. I'm sure your friends are worried about you."

She dutifully stepped out of the car and stepped back. As he drove away, she figured that maybe he wasn't as bad as she thought he was. She could make a friend of Squall Leonhart, yet.

0…0…0…0…0

It had just finished raining and the stable slowly came to life again as hands and trainers wandered back outside. Horses, cats, and dogs ventured from their shelters and hiding places and began to resume their normal routine of getting underfoot as people tried to work. The ground outside was a quagmire of mud so thick that it frequently sucked boots right off of people's feet. Zephyr was no exception.

"Oh, _piss it!"_ She yelled, digging in the mud for her lost boot and carefully balancing herself on one foot to put it back on and lace it up. "I hate this mud! If anyone has a load of stall crud, they can tip it over here! It's ankle deep."

Somebody evidently heard her, and did just that—only they did not wait for her to get out of the way first, and dumped it all over her. She gasped as flakes of sawdust and hay and manure and grain and loose clumps of fur and burrs fell all over her from someone's bucket. There was a roar of laughter behind her. Turning, she saw three stable hands having a grand old laugh at her expense. She felt her eyes narrow and her muscles tense up in anger.

But because of the events of the last few days, three arguments and one physical confrontation with a female stable hand and a lunge whip, Zephyr decided that it was all for the best if she just let it slide. If they were sophomoric enough to laugh at dumping manure on an innocent bystander, then they weren't worth her time to argue with. Besides that, now that it was done raining, she wanted to celebrate an English tradition in the closed off, dirt furnished outdoor arena.

"Always remember the Fifth of November," she chanted the rhyme she learned as a child while she brushed the worst of the crud off of her clothes and out of her hair. "The gunpowder treason and plot."

"We see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot," Archer completed the first part of the poem as he brought her a clean towel. "You remembered. I'm surprised."

"Of course I remembered," she retorted, wiping herself off. "It's the one night of the year that I get to light colossal fires and don't get in trouble for it."

"No, I mean you remembered that _tonight_ is the fifth. You don't normally remember the date." Quietly, her brother added, "I talked to some guys and explained the whole Guy Fawkes Night to them."

This stopped Zephyr from drying her hair from the mix of rain and sawdust bedding. She pulled back part of the towel like a drape and looked at him with one eye. "Is it a go, or should I just wait until we get into the parking lot?"

"They're already building up a pile of timber and putting together a Guy Fawkes made out of old feed sacks and used bedding."

This made her smile. Usually she celebrated Guy Fawkes Night alone with Yuna and Yuffie and Archer and sometimes sans Yuna or Yuffie because of work schedules. The bonfire holiday had always been one of her favorites because it involved setting fire to large piles of wood and shooting off fireworks. This year would be a good year, though. They'd get to have a properly enormous bonfire and a lot of people watching. She only hoped that the slightly damp wood from the rain would not smoke too badly and cause some trouble with the family, or worse, the authorities.

"Are you sure this is all right with everyone?" Zephyr asked. "We're not going to get into trouble or get the sack or anything because of this, are we?"

"I've already asked the Marids," her brother replied, smiling wryly as if he knew something very tasty. "They told me that as long as we keep the bonfire contained and keep it fairly small, they won't have any problems with it." He was still smiling.

"What's with that look?" She asked.

"What look?"

"That look! That silly, smirky smile that means you know something that I'd like to know."

"I saw that silver-haired lad on my way out and I invited him to come down and watch the bonfire. He said he'd like to," Archer proudly announced. "Don't give me that look, little sister, you know you fancy him. You should thank me for this."

She was still staring at him with her eyes bulging out of her head like a herring.

"What? Riku? What's he doing here? How does he know where I work? Is he stalking me or something? Where was he? And what was he doing? How did he even _get_ here?" She pelted her brother with questions.

"He lives here. I thought you knew that," he said, sounding a little confused.

"No! What do you mean? You mean his parents own this place? _I work for him?"_ About now she had a panic-stricken look to her face.

"Come on, Zephyr, stop panicking like that or you'll faint and you won't get to enjoy bonfire night." When he noticed that his sister was _not_ calming down at all, he put his arm around her gently. "Don't be so frightened. It's not the end of the world you know. Besides, he's a nice enough boy. Coming from me, that's saying a lot."

Zephyr nodded. Her brother had always been protective of her. "I suppose so. Just nervous. To think, he's been watching me work every day for the last three and a half years and I haven't even known it." She paused. "I'm still going to beat the living shit out of you."

"I still think you'll thank me for it someday. But for now, lets get the wood set up. We haven't got fireworks but I think if we build a big enough fire, it will compensate for it."

This lightened the mood, and she smiled.

Outside, there were maybe six other stable hands and three trainers who worked late and found themselves there after sunset and invited to an impromptu Guy Fawkes Night bonfire. The only other two or so native Brits were explaining the holiday to those who didn't know about it, and other people were talking amongst themselves. The pile of tinder in the middle of the packed-earth arena was nearly as tall as Zephyr and spread out. A very happy pyromaniac was flitting about the wood with a can of lighter fluid, spritzing it on every square inch of space.

The term _"Gasoline Pixie"_ immediately came to mind.

"Are we ready to light this sucker yet?" Someone yelled. The Gasoline Pixie ignored him and kept tipping lighter fluid.

"Not yet, we still need our Guy Fawkes!" Archer yelled. Not sooner had he finished than three men came up carrying a life-sized rag doll with a face drawn on with a Sharpie pen, and he was wearing a pair of old overalls and a stained shirt. With the same light touch as a serial killer, they threw him atop the pile of wood and boxes. He landed Sharpie-face down on the wood.

Finally they were ready to light it. But instead of lighting the fire with a torch as she was used to seeing, her brother handed her a bow with an arrow in it—the arrow's tip was covered in cloth which was _also_ soaked in lighter fluid, judging from the smell.

"What's this for?" She asked tentatively, although she was pretty sure she already knew full well what it was for. Archer just smiled that stupid cocky smile and Zephyr gave him a look that could probably kill.

"This is gonna be a big show, isn't it?"

She recognized the voice and winced. She really, _really_ wanted to make her brother miserable until the _next_ Guy Fawkes Night for inviting Riku along to come and watch them.

"It's a bonfire," she said, unintentionally coldly. "It's supposed to be a big show." She did not look at him and only stared straight into the mound of wood with the arrow pointing at the ground. "Can we get a match over here so we can light the fire?"

A smoker donated his lighter to the cause. The cloth rag turned it into a flaming arrow and everybody stood well back from the bonfire as Zephyr carefully let the arrow loose into the middle of the tinder. For a brief second, nothing happened. Then there was a spectacular roar as the tinder burst into flames and set an orange glow on everything nearby.

"It's quite a spectacle," Riku commented.

"It's better when there's fireworks," she said absently. "Loads of fireworks and rockets."

"Sounds like the equivalent to Independence Day."

"This is much more fun. For one day in the year we can break all of the fire-safety codes in existence and we aren't arrested for it."

Archer had disappeared and gone off to throw more things into the fire, leaving Zephyr and Riku alone a fair distance from the rest of the spectators, who were alternately drinking and throwing things to the flames.

"I saw what those guys did to you earlier," Riku finally said. "They dumped that whole bucket of bedding onto you. I can do something about that for you."

"No, thank you," she said. "They're like that to me all the time. Boarders, hands, it doesn't seem to matter much. Mostly I just have a good yell at them and they piss off. I try not to fight, because I know I'll get into trouble."

He nodded. "They can get into even _more_ trouble, you know. They started it. They always start it, don't they?"

"Yea. But… whatever." She looked at the bonfire again and winced as someone threw a very old and very dilapidated saddle into the fire. "I hope they took the stirrup irons off of that." Then she thought of something. "How did you know what they were doing to me? Did Archer tell you?"

"No, I saw it."

"When? Where were you?"

"The end of the pasture where all the timid horses go, so that they don't get the shit royally beat out of them by everybody else," he said. When she looked at him a little suspiciously, he admitted, "I spend a lot of time down there. I spoil them rotten, even if they're boarded horses. I figure there's too much competition for them to get treats otherwise."

She looked at him with a look of surprise in her eyes. On the surface, he did not appear to be the type that would spoil the underprivileged horses, especially considering the types of horses his family raised. "That's sweet of you. It's good that they get a some love."

"The big, strong horses get more spoilage than they need. You just need to show them that the world doesn't revolve around them and sometimes the underdog needs a little love."

"Just because you _have_ everything, doesn't mean you should _get_ everything. Is that it?"

"That's exactly it."

0…0…0…0…0

A little foreshadowing there in the ending. As for the length of time between this AN and the one at the beginning of the story mentioning _Thanksgiving—_I have absolutely no excuse. Yea. Just general all-around laziness and a lack of inspiration. Even now I'm a little sunk but I'm slowly getting my oomph back. Anyway, I'm sorry again for the enormous delay in posts.

Oh, yea, Guy Fawkes Night is a British holiday referred to as "bonfire night." The story behind it (really, really abridged version) is that a guy named Guy Fawkes planned to blow up the King of England and the Parliament by storing kegs of gunpowder beneath the building and blowing them all up. He was caught and tortured and then burned alive on a giant bonfire in front of tons of spectators. A bit of a morbid thing do celebrate, actually.

Review, please, and make me happy!


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